Monday, September 30, 2013

Neill Macaulay: The Professor Who Lynched 'Negroes'
September 30, 2013 By Humberto Fontova

Any professor in the U.S. who utters the "N-word" even offhandedly gets
cashiered instantly. Examples abound. Nowadays even using the perfectly
proper term "Negro" can get an educator fired, as in the case of a Bronx
teacher.

The trick to—not only keeping one's academic job—but catapulting to
emeritus status apparently involves using the term "Negro" only for
anti-communist black people that you lynched. I use the word "lynch"
here—not in the current conservative context referring to liberal
handling of Herman Cain, Allen West, Clarence Thomas, etc.—but
literally, as in murdering. An example exists:

The first (victim) was a tall handsome mulatto. He stood blindfolded
before the paredon (firing squad wall), his hands bound in front of him.
"Muchachos," he said calmly, "The only crime you are going to commit is
to kill me, because I am innocent."

I stepped into the field shouted: "Ready!..Aim!–FIRE!"…the man went down
and I went up to him immediately, commanding the firing squad to order
arms as I walked. There were bullet holes in his shirt and he seemed
dead, but I wasted no time in putting the automatic to his head and
pulled the trigger. It made a neat round hole.

Next (victim) to die was a Negro who was hauled kicking and screaming to
the paredon…I told the jailers to throw him up against the wall and get
out of the way…the condemned man froze in terror when he saw his
executioners arrayed before him.

"READY!" My command jolted him out of his trance.

"NO!–NO!" he cried. "Do NOT Get ready." He tried to climb the wall.

"NO!" he yelled while trying to hide behind one of the execution stakes,
but the gun muzzles tracked him relentlessly.

"FIRE!" He turned his head and ducked just as the guns went off. Most of
the bullets struck him in profile, tearing his nose, lips, chin and most
of his cheeks. His face was transformed into a raw, red mass of flesh
and bone that contrasted sharply to the smooth black skin bordering it.
He lay on his back with what was left of his face turned to the firing
squad. Anyone that hideously blasted, I thought, had to be
dead…"[W]ell," I commented to the firing squad, "it is not necessary to
give to give him the tiro de gracia."

"Yes, Americano!" shouted one of my men. "He still lives! Give him the
shot!" His arms and legs were twitching. His movement ceased only when a
bullet from my pistol entered his skull.

The above comes from University of Florida Professor Emeritus Neill
Macaulay's memoirs titled, A Rebel in Cuba, published in 1970. The
judicial process these black Cubans had undergone was best described by
Fidel and Che themselves:

"Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution,
We execute from Revolutionary conviction." (Che Guevara, Feb. 1959)

"Legal proof is impossible to obtain against war criminals. So we
sentence them based on moral conviction." (Fidel Castro Feb. 1959)

"The whole procedure was sickening," wrote New York Times (no less)
correspondent, Ruby Hart Phillips, about a trial she attended in Havana
in early 1959. "The defense attorney made absolutely no defense, instead
he apologized to the court for defending the prisoner."

Edwin Tetlow, Havana correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph, wrote
about a "trial" by Che Guevara's judicial dream — team where he noticed
the dozens of death sentences posted on a board – before the trial had
started.

The future professor Emeritus who gleefully carried out these death
sentences continued gloating:

Escalona (a communist commander later notorious for exterminating rural
Cuban rebel with Soviet arms and officers) introduced me to Fidel as
"the man who is training the firing squads." Fidel threw his head back
and roared with laughter. As I stretched out my hand, he grabbed me by
my shoulders and gave me a bear hug. Everybody was happy. At the
University (of Havana) he was known as Greaseball. To me, however, he
(Fidel) was very attractive.

Fidel says to give the Americano what he wants. So I selected a plot of
about sixty-five acres from an immense plantation that had been jointly
owned by some friends of Batista. The INRA (Che Guevara's Instituto
Nacional de Reforma Agraria) gave me virtually unlimited credit…there
was no house on my land so I chose as a residence the former country
home of Pepe Fraga, Batista's former chief of parking meters in Havana.
Late in July my wife and infant son joined me there.

An American mercenary joins Castro and Che Guevara's criminal band,
executes (murders, actually) Cubans without trial, steals the property
of Cubans at gunpoint. Then he serves for decades as Professor Emeritus
of Latin American Studies at University of Florida, apparently with
nobody batting an eye.

The University of Florida is a state college, so there's a good chance
his salary was paid partly by his victims' families. And again
apparently nobody bats an eye.

Upon Macaulay's death in 2007 (some suspect from suicide) Leftist
professor and documentarian Glenn Gebhard wrote: "He (Macaulay) was not
a socialist or a communist, and he left (Cuba) after he realized he
couldn't make a living…He was a man of action and really smart."

Che Guevara, whatever else we can say about him, seemed to actually
believe in the Communist holy book. Macaulay apparently murdered Cubans
for fun and profit.

Quite fittingly, among Professor Neill Macaulay's final academic duties
was to hail a book by Castro "agent-of- influence" (also the Council on
Foreign Relations Latin American "expert") Julia Sweig as: "the best
book ever written about Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement."

In the early 1960s South Carolinian Neill Macaulay briefly lost his US
citizenship for serving in a foreign nation's military. Then "family
friend" Strom Thurmond pulled some strings to get it back. In brief: a
"good 'ole southern boy" boasts of murdering "Negroes" as a mercenary.
Then among the nation's most prominent segregationists of the time
(Strom Thurmond) retrieves his U.S. citizenship. Then a southern
institute of higher learning hires and honors him.

And not one liberal peeps in protest. Who but a gleeful servant of Fidel
Castro and Che Guevara could get away with something like this in the
eyes of U.S. media and academia?

HAVANA, Cuba , September, www.cubanet.org – It is not possible to find
antecedents – apparently they don't exist — or any other moments in
history when Cuban agricultural production fell as deeply and as long as
in recent decades.

As long ago as 1960, Fidel Castro assured that there was a plan to
supply poultry meat to the internal markets as of January of the
following year. And he added, "Starting in 1962 the food supply will be
fully resolved."

A little later he affirmed, "It is in agriculture where we have
immediate possibilities. It is in agriculture where the fruits are going
to be seen most quickly… The development of livestock goes hand in hand
with the development of sugar. Meat is red gold."

Castro's last attempt (there were many) in the agricultural sector, was
the so-called "Food Plan." The only thing that materialized from it was
the image of a farmer carrying a bunch of bananas which is on the back
of the 20 peso note.

Fidel's brother, General Raul Castro, is following in his footsteps in
this matter. Since taking power, he has been looking for the magic wand
to make the earth bear fruit, even moderately.

The latest effort in this direction was the National Meeting of the
Agricultural Sector Producers, which ended on 14 September at the Lázaro
Peña theater in Havana.

Raul Castro sent a message to the event; in one paragraphs it reads, "In
recent years, various measures have been adopted, in accordance with the
Guidelines approved by the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party,
to eliminate the obstacles that hinder development of this sector.
However, there still remains much to be done to make the contribution of
agriculture to the national economy greater, without which we can not
move the country forward in a sustainable way."

In the early years of the Fidelistas coming to power, the contribution
of agriculture was still outstanding. And that could be appreciated in
the markets. But in 1962, the regime was forced to establish rationing
for essential goods.

From that moment, the shelves of retail stores began to be emptied and
the lack of food began to worsen, until today, when food prices are
infinitely greater than they were at that time.

Why, for centuries, was the land of this Island able to provide
different types of provisions and, instead, for more than half a century
now, it is insufficient? The answer is obvious.

The musician Gorki Aguila detained at the 6th Police Station in Havana
at 2:00 in the morning this Sunday.

Site manager's note: While we wait for more news about Gorki's arrest,
we post this video version of one of Porno Para Ricardo's "signature"
songs — with lyrics in Spanish and English below. The original music
video is here.

Called to be Mosquito Hunters / Jose Hugo Fernandez
Posted on September 29, 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, September, www.cubanet.org – The generalship of the regime
is showing particular interested in incorporating women into the army.
In several sites in Havana where people gather signs have been posted
lately calling on young unemployed women to sign up for active military
service. The proposal includes two supposedly tempting benefits: a
starting salary of 450 Cuban pesos a month (the basic salary of
professionals in Cuba), and the chance to take advantage of the
so-called Order 18, of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, which allows them
to opt for university majors of their choice, with study facilities,
according to their new circumstances.

Suddenly, one might think that this project is another nod from the
regime to international progressives, whose members might easily have
noticed the rancid sexism that prevails in the uniformed forces on the
Island, where, if they are not abundant, there is also a lack of women,
though they fill ornamental roles.

It seems then, that among the "reforms" to update their particular
socialism, the generals resolved to finally grant women their rightful
place among the ranks. However, if that were the purpose, it's thinly
reflected in some of the details of the call. For example, the
professional salaries (which aren't) that these young women will be paid
from the start, don't seem targeted to stimulate their attraction to the
military life, because during their first two years they will work as
civilians in the mosquito vector campaign, work already performed by
hundreds of thousands of women and men (for a much lower salary) without
the academic requisites they are demanding from potential candidates.

So these girls are not going to serve directly as the olive-green
uniformed, nor are they going to study in the military academies to
become technicians and officers in the army. Apparently, their
recruitment will not entail any direct benefit to the FAR. They are
being called to take on a civilian task, for which they will receive a
"privileged" salary, along with other facilities, on behalf of an
employer who does not need them.

This leaves some doubts in the air, in addition to two or three
half-baked conjectures.

Is the call nothing more than a new strategy to confront the practice of
prostitution, continually growing and more scandalous among young Cuban
women? Do the generals really believe that with a salary equivalent to
less than 20 CUC a month, and offers of university entrance, they are
going to manage to recruit girls en masse for their later control under
the military regime? If so, why summon only those with twelve years of
schooling? And why does it have to military who take on an eminently
civil responsibility? Is it that the civil institutions are not
sufficiently reliable, or they can only attract these young women with
the economic incentive needed to inflate the payrolls, only to encourage
these young women?

Any effort is welcome to try to contain the marked tendency of young
Cuban women today towards prostitution. But paying a professional salary
to high school graduates to devote themselves to hunting mosquitoes for
two years, doesn't seem a very lucid approach, neither in terms of civic
rescue, nor as a response to the demands of the gender advocates.

To make matters worse, the decision contains at least two staggering
inconsistencies. On the one hand, those who work in the mosquito control
campaign have had their wages lowered recently, to the point that these
girls would earn 100 Cuban pesos more to do the same job, but with less
experience. On the other hand, it represents a useless swelling of
payrolls, at exactly that time when they're talking about laying off the
hundreds of thousands of State employees as the regime insists on the
need to eliminate unproductive jobs.

The anxiety of the generals before the imperative to win the support of
these girls is understandable. Especially if we give credence to the
assumption that the heir to the throne, Mariela Castro, convinced them
that any good work they undertake against prostitution, shall be
promptly rewarded by the praise of liberal forums and the international
press. But it wouldn't cost them anything to chart their strategies
better, so as not to so obviously shoot themselves in the foot.

José Hugo Fernández. Note : The books of this author can be purchased here.

The Beggars are Foreigners / Cuban Network of Community Spokespeople,
Elizardo Rodriguez Suarez
Posted on September 29, 2013

Artemisa, Cuba, September 26, 2013, Elizardo Rodriguez Suarez / Cuban
Network of Community Spokespeople / www.cubanet.org.- Reports on Cuban
television news show beggars from other countries, mainly from the
United States of America, the so-called "homeless," and broadcast to the
Cuban people their needs and the fact that the American government
doesn't help them, despite the fact that there are shelters in that
country, which are refuges for homeless people.

They do not, however, show a single example of national beggars. In the
journalistic investigative show, "Cuba says," which airs twice a week
after the Television News, they could devote a show to the dumpster
divers where people ask God to find something they can sell so they can
feed their children.

An example of this is the Güira de Melena municipal landfill in Artemisa
Province, where some people look through all that smelly garbage, their
everyday livelihood, moving the rubble to find useful items and aluminum
cans, jars, and other things that the Recyclable Materials Company buys

The Night of the Long Scissors / Camilo Ernesto Olivera
Posted on September 29, 2013

On 13 March 1963, during a commemoration on the steps of the University
of Havana, Fidel Castro said: "For there walks a specimen, another
byproduct we must fight (…), many of these lazy 'hipsters,' children of
the bourgeois, walk around in their too-tight pants, some of them with a
guitar thinking they're Elvis Presley. And they have taken the extreme
liberty of going to public spaces and freely organizing their 'feminine
shows' (…), they are all linked, the little lumpen, the lazy, the Elvis
Presleys, the tight jeans.

Then Castro added, "Don't let these 'hipsters' think the streets of
Havana are the streets of Miami."

Also on a March 13th, but in 1968, Castro himself launched the so-called
General Revolutionary Offensive, an operation that gave the coup de
grace to small- and medium-sized private businesses, and that also
killed the nightlife in the capital and in the whole country.

In the final months of 1967, in Czechoslovakia, the process of social
democratization began that was remembered as the "Prague Spring";
something that set off an alarm in almost all the countries tied to the
Soviet axis.

On 21 August of that year Russian military power occupied Czechoslovakia
and dismantled the government of that country with the consent of the
then Kremlin strongman, L.I. Brezhnev. This same year, in May 1968,
there was the student rebellion that turned France upside down.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, in the months before March 1968, the usual audience
of the nightclubs walked up and down La Rampa trying to kill their
boredom. They take a turn around the central tower of the Coppelia Ice
Creamery, along with spells at the cafe known as El Carmelo at 23rd,
near the intersection of this street and the Avenue of the Presidents.

Other places frequented were the terrace of the cafe at N and 21, next
to the Hotel Capri, the gardens of the Hotel Nacional gardens, and, in
the area where it was located at the time, the Czechoslovak House of
Culture.

A segment of youth, those who were assigned the adjective "enfermitos" —
little sick ones — walked La Rampa at risk. The "hipsters" of the time,
with their tight pants of Chinese khaki, their sleeveless shirts with
embroidered decorations and their modified workboots. Long hair was the
privileged headache of some.

In those days the young poet from Holguin, Delfín Prats, read his poems,
"Language of Mutes," in public. The Beatles' White Album was listened to
in secret.

At the same time, Ana Lasalla and her enthusiastic court of rabid
leftists ravaged Vedado. The frenzied Communist lady actress wielded her
scissors against manes and miniskirts. These scissors had their longest
night on 25 September 1968, exactly 45 years ago today.

Around 9:00 at night that Saturday, a police cordon with uniformed and
plainclothes officers fell on the area. The indiscriminately took
prisoner everyone from casual passersby to pimps who besieged the Hotel
Capri, where sometimes Greek or French sailors from ships anchored in
the harbor stayed. The detainees were classified into three groups:
Homosexuals, Hippies, and the third classification: Improper conduct.

According to those who experienced the events, two members of the rock
group Los Pacificos were arrested very close to the corner of N and
23rd. That group, like another named Los de León (later, Los Kents),
were very popular at the time among young rock fans in the Vedado area.

The group Los Pacificos didn't survive the consequences of that harsh
and bitter night and broke up.

In his speech on Tuesday, 28 September, Fidel Castro referred to the
events of the previous Saturday. He justified the raid as a part of the
offensive being waged against "social evils." He generally accused those
arrested of being involved in vagrancy, pimping minors and other things
of this type.

On Sunday 12 October, the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth)
published an extensive compendium about the raid that had occurred days
earlier. The headline read, "Yankee Dream Destroyed, the boys of the
fourth world."

Other articles appeared in the style of: "How do bands of juveniles
converted into vehicles of imperialist propaganda think and act?" There
was also a photo essay, with images of some of the boys arrested under
the title, "Is this what you want for your son?"

Specifically, an article by the journalist Alfredo Echarry noted:
"Encouraged by the role models of imperialism and inspired by the
workings of their youth gangs, they try to give a structure to
disorganization. Immediately, groups and bands identified by different
names begin to emerge, among them: The Zids, Los Chicos Now, Los Chicos
Melenudos, Los Betts, Los Chicos de la Flor, Los Chicos del Crucifijo,
Los del Palo, Los Sicodélicos, Los del Banano…" Within Echarry's
article, the term "ideological divisiveness" was the condemnatory stigma.

Today, 45 years later, the ghosts of that night of the long scissors
seem to be revived in the schools. The "moralizing" offensive of Raulism
evokes the demons of "the night of the three P's" and that tragic 25
September 1968.

Although it seems incredible, the Revolutionary terror lurks still,
ready to attack and "bring to heel" a society ever more disenchanted and
rebellious.

Right-hander Raicel Iglesias has been detained by Cuban authorities for
attempting to defect, three sources have told Diario De Cuba (h/t Ben
Badler of Baseball America). An employee of the Dirección de Deportes en
Nueva Gerona confirmed Iglesias is being detained and will no longer
train with the local team.

Diaro De Cuba reports the 23-year-old was hiding in the mountains of
Isla de la Juventud until Thursday when he left searching for food and
water. The report says Iglesias attempted to leave Cuba September 22 in
the area of Punta de Piedra, but failed. Diaro De Cuba quotes Lázaro
Ricardo Pérez, an independent journalist, as saying Iglesias was hiding
with several individuals, including his brother, and all were
dehyrdated. Pérez added rumors of the right-hander's escape became
public Tuesday alerting authorities while Iglesias was still in hiding.

Iglesias, who impressed scouts on Cuba's U.S. tour where he hit 92-95
mph on the gun and made batters miss often with his breaking
ball, according to Badler, could be released from custody as early as
today, but it is not known whether he will face charges

HAVANA, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Cuban raw sugar production will increase
some 20 percent during the coming sugar harvest, to 1.8 million tonnes,
official media reported over the weekend.

The country is "at the doors of a harvest during which Cuba proposes to
increase 20 percent its contribution of sugar," state-run Radio Progreso
said on Saturday, reporting on a national meeting of the Sugar Company
Group AZCUBA.

Cuba produced 1.5 million tonnes of raw sugar during the previous
harvest, short of the 1.7 million tones planned, as Hurricane Sandy,
organizational and industrial problems and antiquated machinery took
their toll.

The purpose of the meeting was to review preparations for the upcoming
harvest that begins in December and runs through April. It came at the
conclusion of the September cane estimate used to begin negotiating
export contracts.

Between 600,000 and 700,000 tonnes of Cuba's sugar production goes to
domestic consumption, 400,000 to an export agreement with China and the
remainder other destinations.

The Sugar Ministry was closed two years ago and replaced by AZCUBA, with
subsidiaries in each province.

The company hopes to reverse a long decline in output from 8 million
tonnes in 1990, and produce 2.4 million tonnes by 2015.

Ample rainfall over the last six months should help the coming crop as
just 10 percent is irrigated. (Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by David
Gregorio)

Amano's visit "corresponds with the excellent level of relations"
between the IAEA and the Caribbean nation, a founding member of the
agency, government officials were quoted as saying.

Cuba has cooperated with the IAEA in such fields as health,
agriculture and environmental protection, officials said, adding that
the country's nuclear facilities are subject to the agency's supervision.

Cuba is also a member of both the Treaty for the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Treaty on
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

It is for me a great honor to be able to express these words in this
worldwide famous University of Georgetown. I know that illustrious
Cubans have been professors or students here. Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, a
great Cuban, murdered by the Castro dictatorship, spoke here during the
historic voyage he made to receive the Sakharov Prize from the European
Parliament.

I never could continue my university education because of my
imprisonment by the Castro dictatorship early in my life. What makes a
society free is the rigor with which it seeks the truth through the free
exchange of ideas. That is what we want for Cuba.

When I speak about ideas, I recall two Cuban intellectuals in exile
whose work has been devoted to the achievement of freedom in Cuba. One
is Carlos Alberto Montaner, a voice of guidance for the people of Cuba.
The other is Pedro Roig, a lawyer and historian whose leadership of
Radio and TV Martí enormously aided the Cuban domestic resistance.

The dictatorship that oppresses my country fears the free exchange of
ideas because it knows that its proposals cannot withstand the light of
reason. For more than half a century, it has poisoned the Cuban people
with an indoctrination that goes from the cradle to the grave. The
objective of it all is to stun the free decision-making power of Cubans
so as to divide and fragment the nation. Whoever resists the
indoctrination is punished with exile, prison or death.

My 17 years and 38 days in Castro's prisons allowed me to see and
experience close up in the diabolical machinery of a dictatorship whose
objective is to crush the human spirit by utilizing the most sinister
methods. I have seen this. And I have also seen how, despite this brutal
repression, Cubans have risen to resist. I am part of that sea of Cuban
men and women who civilly resist the dictatorship. I am here because of
them and for them.

The unity of the Cuban nation in the quest for freedom is the regime's
great terror. That is why it wants to divide Cubans racially,
ideologically and geographically. That is why we postulate the thesis of
a single Cuban nation with a single resistance struggling for change.

The Cuban resistance, which struggles peacefully and civically, has a
motto: "The Streets Belong to the People." To all the people. To those
of us who want freedom and to those who are still confused by the
dictatorship. From Cuba, we have proposed - because the time has come -
a Nationwide Civic Work Stoppage. A movement by the people that, in a
gradual, progressive and peaceful way, may disarticulate Castro's
repression. We have gone abroad to spread the word.

We want peace for Cuba. True peace, which, in the words of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., can only exist when justice is present.

Any political proposal to attain peace in Cuba must come from the Cuban
citizenry, from its persistent mobilization for freedom, which is its
resistance movement. And this proposal of peace for Cuba has to include
— inexorably — several cardinal issues:
• The total and real separation from power of the Castro family. Our
country cannot be the property of a dynasty. Cuba was born of whites,
blacks and Chinese to become a republic, the land of free men and women.
• The total separation of the Communist Party and the state. Cuban
communists may have their party but never control the government of Cuba
and subordinate it to their interests, as has happened for more than
half a century.
• The liberation of all Cuban political prisoners.
• The legalization of the opposition political parties and the return of
exiled Cubans.
• Free elections, under international supervision, for a Constituent
Assembly.
• The creation of a Truth Commission that will rule on the direct
responsibilities for crimes against humanity committed against the Cuban
people by the dictatorship.

These issues and several more are included in a historic document titled
"The Agreement for Democracy," which was first signed by a broad
majority of the Cuban opposition in 1998 and has subsequently been
repeatedly ratified by Cuban oppositionists in Cuba and abroad.

I wish to close this first presentation by recalling a phrase from the
man I quoted at the start: Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas. He once said, "Our
hope rises from our struggle." He was right. We Cubans are struggling
for change. We want peace for Cuba.

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" is the secretary general of the
National Front of Civic Resistance Orlando Zapata Tamayo in Cuba. He
gave this speech at Georgetown University on Sept. 16.

Jackson still hopeful for captive US man's release
BY PETER ORSI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday he intends to press on with
a bid to mediate the retrieval of a former U.S. soldier captured by
Colombian rebels three months ago, despite the cool response to his plan
from that country's president.

Jackson said he still plans to travel to Colombia in the coming days in
hopes of negotiating a cease-fire for a patch of jungle where U.S.
citizen Kevin Scott Sutay can be picked up safely.

The guerrilla army known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC, has repeatedly called for a halt to hostilities during peace
talks being carried out in Havana since November, but Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos has refused.

Jackson said a lengthy pause in the fighting is not necessary for his
mission.

"They can have a cease-fire zone for a day to let us bring Kevin out,"
he said. "They can have a cease-fire for two days."

Jackson announced Saturday that he had accepted a FARC invitation to
intervene in the case of Sutay, who was detained by the rebels while
hiking through the jungle in June. According to the FARC, Sutay was
wearing military fatigues and carrying surveillance equipment.

Jackson said the guerrillas told him that Sutay is "free to leave," but
the logistics of that happening safely have to be worked out.

"They at first thought he was a terrorist or a spy, but they later found
that was not the case," Jackson said. "They wanted to release him to our
custody if we would come to Cuba meet with them to hear the whole story."

Following the announcement Saturday, Santos said on Twitter that "only
the Red Cross will be authorized to facilitate the handover of the North
American kidnapped by the FARC. We will not allow a media spectacle."

Santos has repeatedly said he would not send public figures to retrieve
Sutay, insisting it be done discreetly by the International Red Cross.

The Red Cross in Colombia sought to stay out of the fray.

"We are prepared to begin logistical work (for Sutay's retrieval), but
only once all sides agree on the details of the release," spokeswoman
Erika Tovar said.

Jackson expressed hope the peace talks in Cuba will yield a peace
agreement and said he remains optimistic a deal can be negotiated on Sutay.

"We ... congratulate President Santos for his commitment to keep all
forces at the table and to work out a resolution," he said. "We are
sensitive to his communications and his humanitarian concerns and his
political situation. We hope he can appreciate the significance of
retrieving the American veteran and further encouraging the FARC to
agree with the plans for reconciliation."

Jackson did not say whether it appeared he would be able to meet while
in Cuba with imprisoned U.S. government development subcontractor Alan
Gross, as he had earlier hoped.

Gross says he was only installing Internet networks for island Jewish
groups and was no threat to the country. However, a Cuban court
convicted him under a statute governing crimes against the state and
sentenced him to 15 years.

"No one can really come to Cuba and not be concerned about the plight of
Alan Gross," Jackson said.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, September, www.cubanet.org – In the same way that a blind
woman with scales is an allegory of justice and a skeleton with a scythe
is the allegory of death, the image that identifies the CDR should be
the allegory of betrayal.

The creation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in Cuba
was a Machiavellian political monstrosity, conceived to reveal and
suppress all forms of opposition to the nascent Communist dictatorship.

"We will establish a system of Revolutionary collective surveillance,
and everyone will know who lives in the block, what those who live in
the block do, what relations they had with the tyranny [of the Batista
regime], where they work, who they meet, and what activities they get
involved in."

Those were the words of Fidel Castro, spoken on September 28, 1960. The
apparatus of the most formidable surveillance and repression of the
Communist dictatorship began to take form, implemented by the rebels in
January 1959.

The scapegoats to justify its creation were the same ones the government
has used ever since: imperialism and the opposition.

"We can say that the Committees for Defense were engendered in the
public square, in the midst of the struggle against imperialism, in the
heat of battle and the insolent noise of the counterrevolutionary
bombs," Fidel Castro once said.

But creating such a massive apparatus of betrayal and repression could
not be the work of a night of fireworks. The people of Cuba already knew
well the sound of those explosions, thanks to the terrorism work of the
rebels themselves led by Fidel Castro over the whole of the island to
destabilize the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

It was, however, a well-conceived plan and organized in the style of
Hitler, to make massive political denunciation the ultimate weapon
against dissent.

The CDR has been, in addition, the shock troops against opponents.
Beatings, threats, psychological terror, destruction of property. Each
and every one of these methods have been used systematically against
active opponents.

The people's mob, which is not all Cubans, has found in this
organization an oasis of impunity to unleash their passions when they
are incited against their neighbors.

Criminals and corrupt officials, however, have had better luck. The CDR
doesn't watch and betray them with the same frequency as it does the
opponents. Among them and the organizations of the past there has always
existed a kind of symbiosis, where many times it is the money from the
crimes and corruption that have paid for the pigs' heads and the drinks
for the street parties, where they celebrate the birth of this organization.

The wood for cooking the stews burns again this September 28th on the
streets of the island, like the fires of the inquisition burned the
heretics. This is the 53rd birthday of a Castro regime organization
dedicated to political betrayal, or as we say here in Cuba, to snitching.

They Pick up the Prostitutes but Not the Trash on the Streets of Havana
/ Orlando Freire Santana
Posted on September 28, 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, September, www.cubanet.org – At almost the same moment
that Mariela Castro declared that Cuba only penalizes pandering, but not
prostitution, police officers in uniform and in plainclothes conducted
an operation against prostitutes who frequent Águila Street, between
Monte and Estrella, in the municipality of Centro Habana.

The place had lately become a stronghold of cheap prostitution in
Havana, basically targeted to domestic customers. For only six CUC — the
equivalent of six dollars — five for the prostitute and one for the rent
of the room, one can access those services. Of course, this "cheap
prostitution" is relative, as six CUC are a third of the monthly salary
of the average Cuban.

Veterans with experience in the meat trade alternated with young
newcomers from the interior of the country or girls from Havana who
decided to leave school and go out to "fight" for their daily bread. And
although that area, on more than one occasion, has been the target of
other police actions against prostitutes, repression never reached the
levels of bygone days. Just as Mariela, the sexologist of the ruling
dynasty ,also announced the upcoming celebration in Cuba of a symposium
on prostitution and sex tourism.

One of the girls who managed to escape the raid told us the modus
operandi of the authorities on that occasion. The first to act were the
uniformed police. They could not pick up many girls as they managed to
flee. A few hours later, when apparently it was all over and prostitutes
returned to their task, the repressive forces decided to change the
strategy. Some agents dressed in civilian clothes, approached the girls
and proposed a transaction. Once they were accepted, the agents
identified themselves and they were arrested right there.

According to the witness, the detainees were forced to board a police
truck and then driven to the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) Sector
located in Reina Street near the corner of Rayo. There a few were
released after receiving a warning letter — the first step to a
subsequent arrest — but most were taken to the cells at the police
station on Zanja Street, waiting for a trial that could condemn them to
several years in prison.

And while that stretch of Águila Street was witnessing such a manhunt,
very nearby, at the intersection of Angeles and Estrella Streets, a
giant trash dump threatened to worsen the already deteriorating hygienic
conditions faced by residents of that municipality and the rest of the city.

After the four containers for receiving solid waste were full, more than
20 or 30 yards of the street were occupied by wastes of all kinds. One
would think that the leaders of the Castro regime's planning decided to
remove the fuel from the Communal Service Department vehicles charged
with picking up the trash, and give it to the vehicles of the PNR that
undertook the "patriotic" labor of cleaning Havana's streets of prostitutes.

The Cuban leaders haven't been able to rid themselves of the habit of
constantly creating new campaigns to solve problems. First it was the
health campaign against dengue fever and cholera. Now, it seems, it
doesn't matter how many Cubans get sick. The priority in the days to
come is to get rid of the prostitutes so Mariela Castro can invite the
attendees of her symposium to roam the streets of Havana and to see for
themselves that the accusations that Cuba promotes prostitution, sex
tourism and trafficking, are mere fabrications by the enemy, intended to
denigrate the work begun by her uncle and now continued by her father.

Within several months, when Mariela's symposium is history, no one would
be surprised if Águila Street, between Monte and Estrella, is once again
overrun by new practitioners of the oldest of trades.

They Demolished Their House by Mistake / Leonardo Calvo Cardenas
Posted on September 28, 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, September 23, 2013, Andy www.cubanet.org.- Andy Joel
Cabrales and Thais Maylen Franco, in an act of desperation, with their
two young children on Friday afternoon, positioned themselves in front
of the Provincial Court of Havana headquarters to demand a solution to
the tragedy they are living.

Ten days ago they inhabited a house in good condition at 315 Muralla
Street, between Compostela and Habana in Old Havana, when workers from
the Municipal Housing Directorate arrived to demolish a building. And
they mistakenly destroyed the bordering house.

Since then, this family of ten people, including children of seven, one,
and a baby five days old, all suffering from bronchial asthma, lives
among the ruins of what was once their home, now in danger of total
collapse.

Given the repeated demands of the victims, housing officials claim that
they have no answer for the case. And in the provincial government
offices they were limited to "orienting" them requesting a hearing at
the Department of Population Assistance, which does not guarantee any
solution.

In their desperation, the victims have turned to the Communist Party
Central Committee, also with no response. The family reported that no
health authority has been concerned about the health conditions of the
children, or the young mother, still in quarantine from her recent cesarean.

Several citizens who supported the protest were arrested outside the
Capitol building. The municipal director of housing, local government
officials and Communist Party verbally committed to solve the case.

Human rights activists, lawyers and independent journalists will follow
up on the unfortunate event.

Every other night between 8:00 and 10:00 the zone where I live "has its
turn" at the water, and when it runs for a while, my block shows itself
off like a shiny glass mirror. It is because the conducting pipe from
the aqueduct "comes out" in that section — and in many others in
different blocks, neighborhoods and municipalities — and in the absence
of street cleaner cars, which have not been seen in years in Havana
neighborhoods, we are left the impotent alternative of watching as the
water leaks out cleaning and polishing my asphalt artery under the
opaque light of an ephemeral Chinese fixture.

In Vibora it is now tradition that each time it rains the roadways flood
and the neighbors and pedestrians feel like wrecks adrift on the water
and waste, because they do not sweep the streets and the trash from the
containers that they begrudgingly pick up are dragged to the nearest
drainage and clog them. After the downpour passes, it is common to see
much filth trapped by the tires of parked cars on the side of the street
and much filth and various objects — buoyant or not — change places
because of the waters.

It is ironic to sit in front of the television and see spots directed at
citizens that speak of hygienic-sanitary measures and encourage the
saving of the vital liquid in our homes, which seems fine to me. "Drop
by drop water is depleted," says one of these. We all know the
importance of this liquid for satisfying fundamental human needs, and
industrial activities and very necessary energy resources depend on it.

Nevertheless, the vital liquid that we consume domestically is
contaminated with waste water due to the quantity of broken pipes and
drains that exist and that are the result of years of negligence. In the
same way, while in many places in Havana the leaks are public, in others
they have not had running water for years, months or days because of the
poor organization and distribution of the supply and because the
aqueduct networks are too old. Almost all date to before 1959, so that
in more than 54 years there has not existed the political will to solve
this paramount subject for the people.

When a pipe breaks in the street and the neighbors call the state entity
"Havana Water," their plumbers show up as if they were tire patchers,
armed with pieces of tubeless tires for wrapping the pipe and solving
the problem as if it were a flat tire.

Maybe some think that I should be happy because my block is bathed on
alternate days but there are so many places in our country and in the
Cuban capital that lack that valuable liquid, that I cannot help but
think of the cleanliness that many public offices in Cuba also need,
whose bureaucrats do not stay in them because of their efficient
management or for the service they offer the people who supposedly
elected them, but because of their unconditional adherence to a
contaminated regime of administrative inefficiencies and sewer politics
for decades.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. lawmakers on Thursday called for Cuba to be punished
for its illegal weapons dealings with North Korea, arguing the
international-sanctions regime would be undermined if the U.N. Security
Council does not penalize Havana.
The world learned of Cuba and North Korea's secret arms commerce in
July, when Panamanian authorities seized a North Korean freighter, the
Chong Chon Gang, as it attempted to sail through the Panama Canal. A
subsequent search of the cargo ship's hold revealed 25 containers filled
with Soviet-made conventional weapons. Havana quickly claimed ownership
of the military hardware, saying it simply was being transported to
North Korea for retrofitting, after which it would be returned to the
Caribbean nation.
"Failure to hold the Cuban government fully responsible will … be a slap
in the face to our allies," Representative Matthew Salmon (R-Ariz.) said
at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing. "If Cuba is allowed to
get away with this this time, it would send a terrible message to Panama
which put its resources and its reputation on the line to intercept this
vessel."
Salmon, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said not
reprimanding Cuba "in the strongest terms available" risks sending the
message to other countries it is not worth pursuing future possible
violations of the sanctions regimes targeting North Korea and Iran.
Other nations, such as Venezuela, could be emboldened to think they can
violate Security Council sanctions targeting rogue nations and get away
with it, he said.
The Arizona lawmaker said Cuba was carrying out a "charm offensive" at
the United Nations aimed thwarting any punishment from the Security
Council committee that is responsible for sanctions against North Korea.
"Laws … that are not enforced and defended will lose value and respect,"
subcommittee Ranking Member Albio Sires (D-N.J.) said. "The U.S. and the
U.N. should demonstrate that there are consequences to defying
international laws."
Subcommittee member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) criticized the Obama
administration for holding talks with Cuba on migration and resuming
mail services when Havana was carrying out secret weapon deals with
Pyongyang.
"What message do you think it sends to our commitment to regional
security, to move ahead with talks with the [Castro] regime, despite
this blatant violation of international law like the one involving the
North Korean ship?" the Florida representative said.
A full examination of the Chong Chon Gang's hold by Panamanian officials
turned up two anti-aircraft missile systems, nine broken-down missiles,
anti-tank guns, small arms, artillery, rocket-propelled grenades and two
MiG jet fighters, among other assorted aging conventional weaponry,
according to an August report by the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute that was published by the website 38 North.
The entire weapons shipment was substantially larger and more
diversified than what Cuba initially claimed ownership of back in July,
the SIPRI report found.
North Korea predictably has denied doing anything wrong and demanded
that Panamanian authorities give it back the Chong Chon Gang and release
its crew from custody. Panama City has ignored those demands. The Panama
Canal Authority on Thursday imposed a fine of up to $1 million on the
ship's owners, according to a Reuters report.
Sires said he doubted Cuba's claim it was sending the weapons to North
Korea for overhauling.
"If only for repairs, then why did Cuba not ask other nations instead of
breaking various U.N. Security Council resolutions," he said. "With
North Korea doing its best to refurbish its military hardware, it is
more likely that fighter jets were intended to stay in North Korea."
SIPRI senior researcher Hugh Griffiths, who co-wrote the report, told
the subcommittee in an online video call that if Havana truly wants to
show it was acting in good-faith in the Chong Chon Gang incident, it
must first invite investigators from the U.N panel of sanctions experts
to the Caribbean nation and provide full disclosure on all aspects of
deal -- steps the Communist government there has not yet taken.
Griffiths said the Security Council sanctions panel should also
investigate voyages to Cuban ports by North Korean cargo ships that took
place prior to July.
"Some of these voyages may be assessed as carrying a high risk of
proliferation concern on the basis of the vessel's flag, age, past
registration, ownership patterns, its safety record and, most
importantly, various voyage routing anomalies," he said.

Despite a withered economic base, few exports of any value, and a
repressive state bureaucracy, Cuba and the Castro regime have an
outsized international presence. Recently, Havana appeared to be the
international diplomatic broker for former U.S. intelligence analyst
Edward Snowden's asylum applications to various Latin American countries
with a history of poor relations—and no extradition treaties—with the
United States.

This July, Panamanian authorities seized a North Korean cargo vessel
loaded with aging Cuban military equipment [4]. Hidden under tons of
Cuban sugar, the equipment was reportedly on its way to North Korea for
refurbishment. This bizarre episode—an uncharacteristic misstep by the
Cuban government—led to United Nations sanctions inspections and drew
new attention to Cuba's ongoing security relationships with pariah
states like North Korea.

What explains the fact that, time and again for decades, the small, poor
island nation manages to position itself at the fulcrum of superpower
relations, especially within the Americas? At least part of the answer
relates to a Cuban core competence: its aptitude for espionage. Cuban
intelligence services are widely regarded as among the best in the
world—a significant accomplishment, given the country's meager financial
and technological resources.

Earlier this year, Cuban leader Raul Castro announced his intention [5]
to step down in 2018—Cuba's most significant political transition since
the 1959 revolution. The government is also promoting major economic
reforms [6] aimed at spurring growth, attracting more foreign
investment, and moving most of the labor force off of the government's
books and into Cuba's fledgling private sector. Rumors abound [7] that
Havana and Washington are quietly discussing a path toward the lifting
of the U.S. trade embargo. What would such liberalization mean for
Cuba's world-class spy agency?

The DI's rich history

The Directorate of Intelligence (Dirección de Inteligencia,orDI, also
known as G-2 and, earlier, as the Dirección General de Inteligencia, or
DGI) is Cuba's most important intelligence agency. It took shape under
the tutelage of the Soviet KGB: Beginning in 1962, Cuban officers were
trained in Moscow, and from 1970 onward, KGB advisors worked intimately
with Cuban intelligence officials in Havana. By 1968, according to a
declassified CIA repor [8]t, the DGI had been "molded into a highly
professional intelligence organization along classic Soviet lines."

The relationship was symbiotic. For Cuba's leadership, the U.S.-led Bay
of Pigs invasion of 1961, coupled with numerous CIA plots to assassinate
Fidel Castro, cemented America's position as the revolution's deadliest
enemy. The Soviet Union's intelligence services—paramount in the
communist world—were an obvious and welcome ally in the struggle against
the United States and the West more generally.

The Soviet Union's high confidence in its Cuban protégés was evident by
the early 1970s, when the KGB delegated Western European
intelligence-collection responsibilities to the Cubans following the
mass expulsion of Soviet spies from London in 1971 [9]. Beginning in the
mid-1970s, Cuban and Soviet services began the joint cultivation of
targets in the U.S. Defense Department, the intelligence community, and
U.S. military facilities in Spain and Latin America.

During the 1980s, Cuban intelligence had a substantial presence in El
Salvador and Guatemala, where U.S.-backed regimes were fighting
insurgencies. In Nicaragua, U.S.-supported Contra rebels were battling
the leftist Sandinista government. Cuba's intelligence presence in
Western Europe was also substantial. The DI reportedly had 150 officers
in Spain—considerably more than any NATO country had in the Spanish
capital at the time. In addition to spying on NATO military forces, the
DI was responsible for acquiring American technology denied to Cuba
under the U.S. embargo.

The Cuban-Soviet espionage partnership was also evident at the massive
electronic eavesdropping installation in Lourdes [10], near Havana.
Construction began in the summer before the Cuban Missile Crisis in
1962. At its peak of operations, some 1,500 Soviet personnel worked
there. Signals intelligence specialists intercepted U.S. telephone
calls, computer data, and other communications throughout the 1960s and
into the 1990s.

Portions of the intelligence "take" involving U.S. capabilities and
intentions regarding Cuba were no doubt shared with the Castro
government. The Russians shuttered Lourdes in December 2001—a casualty
of fiber optics, the digital revolution, and Moscow's unwillingness to
continue making annual rent payments of $200 million to Cuba to keep the
listening post open.

Cuba's niche: human intelligence in the United States

The closure of the Lourdes facility made collection by other
means—particularly through human sources—all the more critical. Cuba had
long maintained spy networks inside the United States [11] to infiltrate
and monitor anti-Castro exile groups. From 1992 until the FBI arrested
its members in 1998, the so-called Wasp Network (La Red Avispa)
[12]surveilled South Florida exile groups like Alpha 66, targeted the
offices of Cuban-American politicians, and sought jobs at the U.S.
military's Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida.

Cuba launched other ambitious espionage operations. Cuban-born
husband-and-wife spy team Carlos and Elsa Alvarez [13], employees of
Florida International University, received coded instructions via
shortwave radio and gathered information on Miami-area notables that the
DI used to build "intelligence files on individuals of interest to it
[14]," according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The couple, arrested
in 2006, pled guilty and received relatively stiff sentences (even after
cooperating with prosecutors). In 2010, another husband-and-wife spy
team, Kendall and [15]Gwendolyn Myers [15], pled guilty to espionage
charges after thirty years of spying for Cuba. As a senior analyst at
the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Kendall
Myers had access to some of the intelligence community's most secret and
sensitive information. He received a life sentence.

By all accounts, these cases were relatively minor compared to the
espionage committed by Ana Montes [16], a senior Defense Intelligence
Agency analyst and a top U.S. government expert on Cuba. Arrested in
2001, Montes had spent the previous sixteen years passing highly
classified information to her DI handlers—including the names of U.S.
agents in Cuba. Cuban intelligence recruited Montes after allegedly
being "talent-spotted" by Marta Rita Velazquez [17], who at the time was
serving with the U.S. Agency for International Development. (Last April,
U.S. officials unsealed [18] an espionage indictment against Velazquez,
who now reportedly lives in Sweden.)

Like the Myers and Alvarez couples, Montes received instructions by
encrypted messages sent by shortwave radio, a relatively simple but
secure form of communication and a testament to the Cuban service's
tried-and-true spy tradecraft. Like the Myerses, Montes was an
ideological traitor motivated by a fervent commitment to the Cuban
revolution. Montes is now serving a twenty-five year term in federal prison.

Havana's deep reach into Caracas

The DI has played an important part in the relationship between Cuba and
Venezuela, the Castro government's closest ally. President Hugo Chávez
was ideologically (and personally) mesmerized by the charismatic Fidel
Castro and his revolution. Little wonder, then, that when Chávez felt
himself surrounded by conspirators and traps in his first years in
office—especially after the 2002 coup attempt (with the clumsy
endorsement of the Bush administration [19])—he turned to Havana for help.

Venezuela proudly touts its close relations with Cuba. In 2007, Chávez
announced that more than twenty thousand Cuban doctors, nurses, and
technicians [20] were providing health services in the country. In 2005,
sources estimated [21] that the total number of Cubans working in
Venezuela was approximately forty thousand, though several thousand were
reported later to have fled abroad. According to the Venezuelan
government, Cubans provide a range of expertise including medical care,
sports training, infrastructural engineering, telecommunications, and
the organization and training of "Bolivarian" community militias
prepared to stave off a U.S. invasion. Cuba's advisory presence has also
included large numbers of DI officers.

Venezuela's critics [22] (including a few former high-level officials
[23] in the Chávez government) allege that Cuba's influence is far
greater and particularly strong within the government's intelligence
agencies. According to press reports [24] describing a 2006 U.S. State
Department cable [25] obtained by WikiLeaks, Cuban intelligence advisors
had direct access to Chávez and ultimate oversight over some of the
intelligence he received. According to the cable, Venezuela's
intelligence agency displayed the requisite revolutionary élan in its
anti-Americanism, but lacked the expertise of its Cuban partners. The DI
went on to restructure and retrain the Bolivarian Intelligence Agency in
Cuban methods, particularly the penetration, monitoring and exploitation
of political opposition groups.

Documents have also described high-level political machinations by
senior DI officers in Caracas—notably, that the service appeared to have
orchestrated various turnovers within Chávez's cabinet, as the DI
officials sought to promote more ideologically rigid party loyalists
over military officers. The Venezuelan military is the only state
institution that resisted the government's deepening and widening
reliance on Cuban advisors; such resistance weakened over time as
outspoken critics were purged from the armed forces.

Under Chávez's successor, Nicolás Maduro, Cuba's intelligence reach
within Venezuela seems only to have increased. The entourage traveling
with Maduro to New York for this year's UN General Assembly included
Cuban intelligence officers, according ABC, a Madrid daily. The paper
claimed that Maduro's plane was forced to return to Caracas after the
United States denied visas to the Cubans on board. The leak of a
recorded phone conversation [26] between Mario Silva, a senior socialist
party loyalist and TV personality, and a DI officer caused a major
scandal. In the phone call, the loyal chavista laments to the Cuban
about the corruption, incompetence, and infighting among the Maduro
government's top officials. The Venezuelan media have also called
attention to the Maduro government's contract with a Cuban state-owned
company to administer Venezuela's database of its residents and their
foreign travel, and to produce national identification cards that will
include biometric information [27]. According to published reports [28],
Argentina and Bolivia have also invited Cuba's services to help create
new national databases and identification cards.

Havana has several salient interests in an intelligence presence and
outreach capability in Venezuela. Keeping tabs on the political
intrigues and dynamics within Venezuela's political leadership is
clearly a top intelligence priority for Cuba, considering that it
depends on subsidized oil from Venezuela—ostensibly in payment for the
presence of Cuban doctors, technicians, and advisors.

The DI's ability to understand and manipulate Venezuelan politics may
determine whether such beneficence will continue. Unfettered DI mobility
in Venezuela allows the Cuban service ready access to countries like
Colombia and Brazil, and also to international financial systems and
technology it has trouble accessing from Havana. From Venezuela, the DI
can also channel resources from a pool far greater than Cuba's to
ideological partners across the world such as Colombia's FARC
insurgents, Russia, and Nicaragua.

Post-Castro intelligence

Cuba's talent for espionage provides the country with obvious tactical
and strategic advantages. It can be expected to contribute to regime
security—as long as the Communist Party of Cuba (Partido Comunista de
Cuba, or PCC) retains its grip on power, the Cuban leadership will
likely continue to view the United States as its main adversary.
According to the long-standing PCC narrative, the United States is the
principal threat to the revolution, and so U.S.-related intelligence
collection is likely to remain a Cuban imperative. And as long as
below-market value oil flows Havana's way, Venezuela is a first-tier
intelligence priority.

Intelligence supports other Cuban official interests. U.S. intelligence
specialists have long assumed that Cuba provides other countries in the
anti-U.S. firmament—such as Iran, China, and North Korea—with
information, including commercial and technical data, collected by its
U.S.-based spies. No country (including the United States) shares
intelligence for nothing. "Intelligence liaison," as it is known, is a
transactional relationship, and the Cubans can reasonably expect to
receive information, money and commodities in return.

Cuba will probably try to expand its market for intelligence about the
United States. But deeper ties with countries like Iran and North Korea
bring their own risks. While the Castro regime has many external
critics, its international position is relatively normal compared to the
outlaw status of countries like Iran and North Korea. Enhanced
intelligence ties with such pariahs would likely bring unwanted
international attention, and further damage Cuba's political reputation.

The potential international market for sensitive information will not
necessarily be limited to "hard" intelligence on U.S. security. If Cuba
enters an era of economic liberalization, it is likely to be seen by the
international community as a more "normal" state. The market for its
intelligence may well expand beyond the shrinking circle of radical
governments. Countries engaged in industrial competition with America,
like China, Brazil, and India, may come to value Cuba's espionage
prowess as an instrument for gathering commercial intelligence about the
United States.

If Cuba's revolutionary patina dulls significantly over time, the DI may
be forced to change its business model. A post-revolutionary Cuba could
no longer count on ideological commitment to motivate its intelligence
recruits. Instead, Cuba would have to offer substantial amounts of money
and other blandishments—an approach used with great success by spy
services the world over.

Moreover, America's trade competitors may look to the Cuban services as
a means to acquire difficult-to-obtain U.S. technology. Cuban
intelligence operations in Venezuela and, earlier, in Spain suggest a
precedent. For Cuba, intelligence is likely to remain a competitive
advantage that any post-Castro (or even post-PCC) government is unlikely
to discard.

William Rosenau and Ralph Espach are senior analysts at CNA's Center for
Strategic Studies in Alexandria, Virginia. The views expressed here are
their own.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Cubans Are Losing Their Fear / Antonio Rodiles, Estado de Sats
Posted on September 27, 2013

By Carmen Muñoz for ABC.es

To Antonio G. Rodiles (born Havana, 1972) it seemed "unthinkable" that a
Cuban musician would dare to ask for free elections during an official
concert, until the jazz musician Roberto Carcassés did it last week in
the capital. "It's a sign of the new times," said this physicist,
director of the Estado de SATS (State of SATS) think tank, and
coordinator of the citizen campaign For Another Cuba. The arrest of the
human rights activist over 19 days last November, accompanied by a
brutal beating, had wide repercussions.

After participating in Prague in a forum about transitions, this Friday
he will meet in Madrid with the Secretary of State for Latin America,
Jesus Gracia, and speak at the Real Instituto Elcano. His biggest
challenge now is the international meeting on human rights that he is
preparing for this December 10 in Havana. "If now they let us (the
dissidents) travel. Why don't they let Cubans and interested foreigners
enter the country to participate in a civil society activity. We
challenge the system to demonstrate whether it is really changing or
not." This Saturday he returns to the island.

- Do you think Roberto Carcasses incident has ended with the sanction
imposed by the regime?*

AR: Robertico Carcassés will just have to deal with it, the regime is
waiting for the storm to pass to go after him. He has put on numerous
concerts, inside and outside the island, and has never put on any
demonstrations like this, even though people know that neither he nor
his father (the showman Bobby Carcassés) are unconditional supporters of
the regime, like Silvio Rodriguez. His daring is a sign that times are
changing in Cuba, people want substantial changes, of greater
significance, the current ones are just superficial. Cubans are losing
their fear, they are daring more, 54 years of a totalitarian regime is
too much time. They now understand that for there to be changes the
system must change. What Carcassés did was unthinkable, he didn't do it
as an act of suicide.

- Did the singer Silvio Rodriguez challenge the dictatorship by inviting
Carcassés to his concerts?

AR: Silvio tried to throw water on the fire, to find the smartest
solution for the system. The censorship of Carcassés censorship would
have implied that the news of the act of free speech had acquired major
notoriety, counterproductive for the regime.

- What message about the Cuban reforms did you send to Spain?

AR: They are totally inadequate, especially when the country is
undergoing such an crisis. For Cuba not to collapse we need to undertake
structural changes that would imply accepting all the political,
economic, social and cultural rights contained in the UN covenants to
enter into a real transition process.

- What do you think the appeal this week from the Cuban Catholic Church
for political changes to accompany the economic?

AR: Recently the Church has taken an unwise position. However, it seems
very important to me as a political actor and it would be highly
recommended to begin to focus on and respect the fundamental rights in
Cuba. If that happens, it could play a vital role in the short and
medium term.

- Do the new times also affect the dissidence?

AR: There is a rethinking of many points of strategy, of projection,
that may have had something to do with the ability to make contact with
the outside world through immigration reform. Opponents can travel and
make contact with politicians from other countries, Cubans abroad …
which leads to a new scenario.

- And to repression?

AR: They have changed their tactics but continue doing it. Now it's
surgical, focused on the projects and actors that the Government
considers dangerous to its totalitarian hegemony of power. There are
still beatings, large operations to block the opposition from attending
events, and short duration arrests. Lately they don't even take those
the arrest to police stations, they abandon them in inhospitable places.

State of SATS and For Another Cuba

During the summer of 2010, Antonio G. Rodiles launched this "think tank
mixed with art" in order to "create a public space for discussions" in
Cuba among intellectuals, artists and human rights activists . A group
of eight people, among them the writer and political prisoner Angel
Santiesteban, coordinate exhibitions, documentaries, debates or videos
that seek to impact the civil society.

From these discussions, emerged the idea of promoting the For Another
Cuba campaign, with the objective of urging the Castro regime to ratify
and implement two United Nations covenants on civil and political
rights, and on economic, social and cultural United Nations. The creator
and director of Estado de SATS adds that "its implementation is a kind
of road map to begin the transition from the recognition of fundamental
rights."

Translator's note:
*After this interview the regime withdrew the sanction — that he would
not be allowed to perform in public — against Robertico Carcassés.

The Slow Death of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR)
/ Orlando Delgado
Posted on September 27, 2013

The Cuban Government is ready to celebrate another congress of one of
its most sui generis organizations: the so-called Committees for the
Defense of the Revolution (CDR). This organization, in theory, brings
together more than 8 million people and was created to monitor and
inform on individuals or groups who from early on showed their
disagreements with the Castro regime and its Marxist ideology. Castro
himself had no shame in declaring (in the excitement of those early
years) that these committees arose to "see what people do and what they
are dedicated to."

His words legitimated and protected the snitching and opportunistic
denouncing of others, and the grossest violations of people's privacy.
The CDRs became the primary link in the chain of control that the
Government exercises over its citizens, still reflected in the slogan of
the repeated Castro conclaves: "United, vigilant and combative."

These words call on what the ordinary Cuban now has the least
inclination to do, because whom are they going to spy on and combat?
Will it be the neighbor who has a better standard of living thanks to
the fact that he now works in a warehouse where he can "find things." Or
the neighbor who feeds her children through prostitution or selling what
falls into her hands? And so we could list thousands of activities
considered illegal by the Government that are a part of daily life on
the island.

Last September 27th (the evening of the day before is chosen to
anticipate the 28th, the day of its creation), in many Havana
neighborhoods there was not the traditional bonfire and stew that
usually "celebrates" the such a negative organization. Not even in the
most critical years of the regime, in the 1990s, did the neighbors fail
to get together a little soup pot and fill the block with flags. But if
there is something relentless it is the passage of time and although the
Castro clan resists challenging it, the CDRs (the whole system) shows a
prolonged wear.

Proof of this is that long before the regime filled with city with
yellow ribbons to divert attention from the pressing problems of Cuban
society, they were gradually pasting a new sticker on the doors of the
presidents of the CDR to reaffirm that here lives the maximum leader of
the block and the organization is working, or seems to be working,
although many of the residents of the place do not know that person and
show their apathy towards the sporadic calls to activities.

In the dreamed of transition, this organization would be the first to be
dismantled to make way for full respect for the most elemental
individual freedoms and a legitimate Rule of Law, which itself would
lead (stripped of authoritarian or vertical elements) to an effective
community life.

HAVANA, Cuba , September 25, 2013 , www.cubanet.org.- On September 4 ,
the Mayabeque Provincial Prosecutor accused Yaíma Nach Remedios and her
stepson, Yasmany Torres Hernández, for allegedly convincing other people
to illegally leave the country, in exchange for money and help to build
a boat.

Yaíma (with no criminal record) and Yasmany, a young man only 23 and
with no criminal record, face charges of 4 and 5 years in prison,
respectively. Cuban courts impose penalties of up to eight years in
prison on those enter, try to leave or leave the country, "without
completing legal formalities."

Nach Remedios — who does not belong to any opposition organization
–claimed Wednesday that only false witnesses could suggest it was only
she and her stepson who organized the departure. "We and 14 other
people, by mutual agreement, tried to reach the United States," she
confessed.

They have used us as guinea pigs, as the other crew members are free and
without charges," she lamented.

Among the four witnesses that the prosecution called to testify, there
is a coastguard and a first lieutenant instructor from the Unit of
Crimes against State Security.

Tragedy on the high seas

On March 7, 2013, Yaíma and a group of 15 people threw a boarded a
makeshift boat with an engine, with the dream of reaching the coast of
the United States. According to what they said, they were sailing for
three days and three nights, but during the voyage they were surprised
by a storm.

"We try to return to find land, and wait for the calm, but all the
shores had dog-teeth (sharp rocks) At 9:00 at night, the board turned
around Yaima said, in a loud voice and with watery eyes, without
starting to cry.

"Everyone tried to get out of the water to go their own way," Yasmany
continued. One of us never appeared. It was almost dawn when we found
Yaima with her ankle cut up and bleeding. Given that, we decided to give
ourselves up to save her."
Today Yaima walks with a prosthesis on her left leg. Her husband, who
had nothing to do with the events, was detained for four months, before
being released for lack of proof against him.

Currently, the penalties are suspended by the migration agreements
between Cuba and the United States, with respect to emigrating Cubans
intercepted on the high seas by the American authorities, or who
illegally enter the Guantanamo Naval Base.

The U.S. Government promised to return them to Cuba and on the Cuban
side the promised not to take legal reprisals against them, on their
return to their place of residence on the Island.

I am the Woman Who was Raped by an Immigration Officer in the Bahamas / CID
Posted on September 27, 2013

My name is Maireni Saborio Gonzales, I am 23 years old and I live in
city of Caibarien, Villa Clara. I left as a boat person or rafter on
September 25, 2012 and I was jailed for 11 months in the Carmicheal
Center located in Nassau Bahamas, where later on I was deported back to
Cuba on August 21, 2013.

While in Bahamas, I psychologically suffered very much. I was the woman
who was raped by the immigration officer in Bahamas.

I am very afraid to be in this country – Cuba – because I declared
myself as dissident on some United States' radio stations, on the
internet and I repudiated wanting to return to Cuba in all instances.

I am under a lot of tension due to all the things that have happened to
me; I also had to denounce the Bahamian authorities because of their
lack of protection during the time I was imprisoned, due to the sexual
assaults that I suffered on several occasions and I am under pressure
too because I was returned to a country where I haven't been able to
find a job and I feel that I am under surveillance at all times.

I was one of the women who stitched their mouths shut; I surrendered my
beauty and I shaved my head to collaborate with my compatriots, 24
Cubans completely bald. I did two hunger strikes, one that lasted 18
days and the second one that lasted 16 days, and there were men on
strike too.

The Bahamian government detained me because I tried to kill myself due
to the psychological stress that I was under. They detained me and took
me to a mental institution in which around March I took a mixture of 20
different medications so I could take my life. Afterwards, they took me
to the Silent Hospital, another medical institution which the
Bahamanians have on the island of Nassau to treat the mentally ill.

As I said before, there they gave me medications and wouldn't tell me
anything about what was going to happen with our situation and I was
extremely stressed.

We witnessed beatings, we saw our compatriots be beaten, the video that
is going around the world is not a lie, this video is real and we lived
it and we, the women, decided to go through everything that happened
because nothing that you see in those photos and on the internet is a
lie and we decided to do it because we were tired of these things and of
existing under those horrific conditions in which we found ourselves
where we didn't even have drinking water and we had to sleep on the
floor and we couldn't communicate with our families and we were
continually sexually harassed.

In addition to seeing how they mistreated our compatriots, we had no
human rights, no one we could count on and we lived in this place in
this concentration camp that was horrible and what we wanted was for the
whole world to see what was happening and what happens with all these
Cubans. We were a little more than forty Cubans who were in the
detention center, we aren't criminals and the only thing we were looking
for was a window to freedom and I ask, please, that everyone who sees
this video knows what is is real and help us so that one day we can see
the freedom we so greatly desire.